Burning Bright

  I lean back a little from the lipstick smell of her mouth. I haven’t brushed my teeth yet this morning and I’m sure my own breath smells of last night’s garlic. ‘But for now, I’m happy enough at the Warehouse. It’s not hard work. I’d pay to see the films anyway, and you get some interesting people.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you do. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it – contacts. Mind you, so does Kai. Meet people I mean. Very interesting, some of them. Have you got a bit of paper and I’ll just write my little note? But maybe you don’t meet many of them – Kai’s and Tony’s friends? Business contacts, I should say – it comes to the same thing with Kai and Tony, doesn’t it?’

  A cat-like look turns her mouth into a muzzle. She’s watching me intently, very close, wondering how much more she can play with me. Wondering how much I know.

  ‘Is this pad big enough? I can get you an envelope if you like.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing private. Just a little note. An arrangement Kai asked me to confirm. I am being rude, aren’t I? I know your name, and you don’t know mine. I’m Vicki. Vick. Bugger this bracelet. It’s my wrists, really. Can I find anything to fit in the shops? Can I Christmas. Not even in Bond Street. Too slim, they all say. No, it has to be Hatton Gardens and custom-made, and you know what that costs.’

  ‘It’s very pretty.’

  ‘I suppose it’s not bad. A lot of people don’t know quality when they see it, do they? They think everything’s paste. Just as well, with all these muggers about. This area’s gone down a lot. They’re quite good stones apparently. You have to be careful with diamonds, you can get taken for a ride. But perhaps you’re not very interested in jewellery? You look more the natural type of girl. Green. Your hair’s lovely, though. I like the style, it’s very unusual. And you can get away with it at your age.’

  ‘You could write your name on the window. Don’t diamonds cut glass?’

  ‘Quite a lot of people have already, haven’t they, from the look of it? I can’t bear dirty windows myself. I have to get going with a wash-leather, even in someone else’s place. I’m funny like that. A bit like Kai, really. You know what he’s like about dirt. Don’t get all worried, though, Nadine, I’m not going to start having a go at your windows. I can see you’re all upside-down still. A place like this is an investment, isn’t it? Not like a home. Do it up and move on. I don’t know that I’d fancy it myself, not knowing what sort of people were here before me. I like new houses. I mean, you wouldn’t wear someone else’s old clothes, would you? And a house is much more personal. A bit like underwear. Nearly done. There, now if I give that to you, you can pass it on to Kai for me, can’t you? Just say Vicki popped round. He’ll know what it’s about. Well, see you again, Nadine. Now we’ve got to know one another, we can have a real chat next time. My daughter’s got her Grade 3 violin exam this morning and she’s a bag of nerves, so I’ve got to get back to take her to the examination centre. Silly, really, ‘cos she’s ever so talented. She’s had a very good teacher. You’ve got to be prepared to pay if you want to get anywhere. Do you ever go to the sauna at the Swift Health Club?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, I thought you would. Kai’s ever so keen on saunas. I suppose it’s to do with him being Finnish. You ought to come along one day with me and Lila – she’s another girl I know. She’s in the business too. You ought to meet Lila, I think you two would get on. She’s got a lovely little girl. Rosie. Have you got any kids yourself, Nadine?’

  ‘Well, I have got a little boy. But I put him into care – it seemed the best thing to do, considering.’

  ‘Did you? Well of course you know best. I know it can be tricky when a girl’s on her own. But you’re not on your own now, are you? Kai’s very fond of kiddies, you’ll find. You ought to talk to Lila. The toys Kai’s bought for Rosie! Uncle Kai, she calls him. How old is your little one?’

  ‘Six. Nearly seven.’

  ‘Oh, my God, you got started early, didn’t you, Nadine? How old are you now, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Nineteen,’ I lie, as I’ve lied at work.

  ‘Oh, that’s terrible. Oh, you’ve really upset me now. You must have been the same age as my Donna when you had him.’

  She is really shocked. I’ve touched a nerve under the year-round crocodile tan.

  ‘Sorry, Vicki. I was only kidding.’

  An explosion of teeth. ‘Lucky I didn’t go and tell Lila. She’s got no sense of humour at all. I’ll give you a ring about that sauna, then, shall I? I’ve got your number. Nice to meet you, Nadine.’

  I shut the door behind her, open the window to let out the dark smell of her perfume. Enid is calling. How long has she been calling? Her voice sounds little and lost and old.

  ‘Nadine! Nad-eeeen!’

  Enid trembles on the landing in her sunshine-yellow pyjamas.

  ‘Oh, Nadine. Oh, Nadine. Oh, I’ve had such a terrible dream.’

  I put my arm around her. She is vibrating. Maybe it’s shock?

  ‘Come and lie down. You look really ill.’

  ‘I can’t go back in there. I’ll get that dream again. Let me just sit down here a minute and get my breath back.’

  She sits on the landing, small and shrivelled, her knees drawn up to her chin, her wispy hair disarranged so that looking down I see pink bald patches on her skull. I put my arm round her shoulder and smell her bird’s nest smell.

  ‘I’ll be all right in a minute.’

  But she’s very pale and her mouth is open a little, panting. Her colour is bad. I wonder if I should get Dr Govind.

  ‘You ought to lie down, Enid. Shall I ring the doctor?’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘Come into my room. Kai’s not here. You can lie down on our bed. It won’t bring your dream back in there.’

  ‘I couldn’t go in there. Your Kai wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘Enid, don’t be silly. He’s away. He won’t know.’

  ‘He’d find out. He’s the sort that finds out everything.’

  She won’t move and she doesn’t want a drink of water, so we sit there while the trembling settles and her colour becomes yellowish again rather than dead white. Or is it just the reflection of her pyjamas? I can’t be sure. She ought to see the doctor but she won’t. Someone else fetched Dr Govind when she had pneumonia. She’s frightened they’ll put her in a home, though I keep telling her they won’t do that, they’re only too glad if people can manage at home. And she believes that the body can look after itself if it’s not filled with drugs to upset the balance. Dr Govind gave her sleeping tablets and she’s never touched them.

  ‘If you feel better tonight, we’ll go out to the pub. A couple of ginger wines will warm you up.’

  Enid pulls her shoulders back and sniffs. She’s really looking better.

  ‘Thank you, dear. I shall be able to go back into my room in a minute. Did you have a visitor? I thought I heard voices.’

  ‘Yes, it was someone Kai knows.’

  ‘I thought it was. I knew I’d heard that voice before.’

  ‘No, you must have mistaken her for someone else. It’s the first time she’s been here.’

  ‘I don’t want to contradict you, Nadine dear, but she has most definitely been here before. Wait a minute. It’ll come back to me.’ She stares down at her knees, then up at me triumphantly. There’s even a hint of colour in her face now. ‘Blonde woman, big teeth. One of those voices that goes through you like a saw. I’ve heard her laughing. She looks like a horse when she laughs.’

  Maybe Enid was looking down over the banisters when Vicki and I went across the hall. She likes to know what’s going on. Often when I look up from the hall or the landing I can sense she’s there. No – she can’t have seen Vicki this morning, because she’s only just woken up from a nightmare. And she can’t be faking that because she really looked ill. Or could it have been something else which frightened her, not a dream at all? Vicki can’t have frightened her. So Vicki’s been here before. No
use asking Enid about it now.

  ‘I wouldn’t trust that one, Nadine. Not if I was you. She may pretend it’s the first time, but she has been here before, and more than once. I remember one night I heard her laugh. I looked down but it was dark.’

  ‘You’re imagining things. I’m here every night.’

  ‘Yes, but sometimes you don’t get in until late, do you, dear? Not when they have those late-night shows. But you know me, I’m always here. I shut my door and put on my music. I don’t want to hear anything.’

  ‘It’s just a business thing.’

  ‘I’m not saying any different. Business is business and it’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t want to know about business. I’m only saying, she’s been here before. I’m not saying what or why or when or who.’

  Enid’s here all the time. You get used to her, like you do to a bird which has made its nest in your chimney. That’s how Kai thinks of Enid, I’m sure. He’d like to poke her out of the nest she’s made, then fetch a brush and sweep out the nest itself and every trace of Enid would be gone. He’d do it if he wasn’t afraid of the mess she’d make. She wouldn’t go quietly. She’d scream and shout and cry in the square and all the neighbours would know. Someone might even call the police, though I don’t think so, not here. Kai doesn’t want that.

  Kai doesn’t know Enid, not like I do. He thinks she’s stupid, a stupid, dirty, awkward old bird who came with the house, one he can’t get rid of, not yet. He had the lawyers look into it, but they told him she had her rights as a sitting tenant. He knew that anyway, when he bought the house. I don’t know why he bothered with the lawyers. He must have pretended to himself that she’d just disappear when we moved in, leaving another empty room in the attic. But Enid isn’t a stupid old bird. Enid thinks. She’s here, and she thinks and she listens. The doors don’t close properly in this house, with all the doorknobs missing. Does Kai ever think about what Enid hears, or what she sees? She’s got enough sense not to let anything slip in front of Kai and Tony. Anyway they never talk to her. It’s their way of pretending she’s not here. If they don’t notice her then she doesn’t exist. But Enid will tell me. She trusts me…;

  ‘I should forget it, Enid.’

  ‘You’re a good girl, Nadine. And I’m good at forgetting. But you don’t want to go making a friend of that one. Not even if your Kai wants you to. I wouldn’t trust her. She’s got a look in her eyes like someone I used to know.’

  ‘Kai doesn’t know anything about it. He didn’t even know she was coming this morning.’

  ‘Didn’t he? Well, you know best. But when you’re young you shouldn’t need to be forgetting things all the time. You need your memories when you get to my age.’

  She hauls on my arm to stand up, then straightens herself carefully and swings one knee back and forth, testing the joint.

  ‘Just a silly turn,’ she says, suddenly buoyant again. She pats my arm reassuringly. This is always happening with Enid and me. One moment she’s leaning on me like a small bony child, the next she casts me off as if I’m the one who needs her. And the door shuts, like my parents’ bedroom door shutting on me when I was little.

  ‘Time I got dressed,’ she says briskly and scuttles up to her room, closing the door firmly. And there I am in my stale t-shirt at the top of the stairs.

  I go back to my room and pick up my tapestry, squat cross-legged on the bed and begin to cross-stitch the back of a kitten. I’m angry with Enid. There are three kittens in the tapestry, one arched across a rug, digging in its claws, another savaging an apple, a third running off after the mother cat whose tail is just flicking out of the tapestry frame. Why does Enid have to keep on about things? OK, we all know Kai and Tony aren’t Marks & Spencer. But if I can live with it, why’s she got to keep on asking questions? These kittens are lovely. They are real kittens, not cute at all. Lulu will like them. She will keep the tapestry on her knee, stabbing at it with her wild hands, cuffing the frame. She will go to bed with it at night until she has worn it out.

  ‘Oh, look, Lulu, a present from your sister.’

  Lulu will make throaty noises of excitement and lunge forwards in her wheelchair, but the safety strap will hold her. They don’t take any risks now, not after Lulu fell out and gashed her head on the corner of the fridge-freezer.

  ‘Lulu, look. Kittens. Your favourite. Nadine made it for you. Deenie!’ Deenie. It sounds so intimate, the kind of nickname you’d give to a child who couldn’t say her own name. Then you’d hold on to it out of love long after everyone had forgotten where the nickname came from. But they only made it up for Lulu. To make things easier for Lulu. That cry of pain which means Nadine. My sister. But they mustn’t get her too excited or she’ll start screaming. Three black and white kittens on a background of red. Lulu will like the red.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Nadine, leave your mother alone. Can’t you see she’s worn out. She’s been looking after Lulu all day. Have some sense.’

  I shrink back across the long unkempt grass, back into the shadow of the mock-orange blossom. Mother has been exercising Lulu’s legs on a rug in the sun, bicycling them up and round, up and round, like daisy wheels in the sun while I blink and watch. Lulu loves it. It’s so exciting, she’s choked with it. Mr Gargoyle looks over the fence and frowns. Lulu screams.

  ‘Oh, hello, Mr Garrigle, oh dear, I’m so sorry about all the noise…;’

  She isn’t sorry at all. Her fierce face flames at Mr Gargoyle. She’s angry. Lulu’s legs thrash weakly, the sun pours down, I want a drink.

  ‘For God’s sake, Nadine, what is it now?’

  ‘How many times have I got to tell you to leave your mother alone? All the other children are playing out. Off you go, out into the lane.’

  Pick, pick, through the strong linen goes my needle, piercing an eye for a kitten, a chewed segment of apple. Why should Kai be blamed? It’s not his fault Enid was here first, and he’s never done anything to her. He’s not trying to get her out, and plenty of landlords would. There are ways. Enid doesn’t know how lucky she is. You can’t afford to be sentimental in property.

  I keep thinking about the banknotes, and the smell of money. It has a safe smell. I know Kai’s into some stuff. I’m not stupid. And I don’t particularly want Vicki here, any more than Enid does. But you can’t be that rigid. You have to let her in. Pass, friend, pass, business associate. Kai keeps saying these are difficult times. Life is difficult, Nadine. You raise money on property you’ve bought with money you’ve raised on property you’ve bought with money you’ve – It’s like defying gravity on a fairground ride that pins you to the wall by centrifugal force. It whips round faster and faster, and then they take the floor away and you look out level with the weathercock on the church tower. The thing is not to look down. The money’ll keep on balancing as long as no one realizes there isn’t anything underneath. Why should Enid keep going on about it? Why should anyone?

  And one thing I do know is that Kai’s clean. That used to worry me, because of all the money. I thought he must be dealing. But I know there’s nothing like that. That one time I scored some dope from Chris and I was in here smoking a joint when Kai came back. Never again. I was amazed – why make such a fuss? After all, everybody does it. I’d have thought Kai would have known that. But he made me promise, never again. Never anything. Never in the house. It was easy to promise. All I wanted it for was so I could lie and listen to music when Kai was away and time could come apart and loop and loop and loop like someone drawing big circles freehand. I’d had enough of time jerking from minute to minute and me having to watch it. But it always seemed to end up making me feel sad. So I didn’t mind not smoking it any more. I started doing cross-stitch and it worked nearly as well. And I’ve never touched anything else. I didn’t really mind that Kai was so angry. It made me feel safe. Looked after…;

  … like I felt when I first met Kai. When he had that old blue van, and he used to meet me out of school. I don’t know what he was doing up in
the Midlands – business again, I suppose. I thought he lived there, I thought that little flat by the park was his home, not just one of the places he stayed in. Every day I walked through the school gate, and under the laurels, and down to the tunnel, and there was Kai. He’d always have something for us to eat. He said I wasn’t eating properly. He brought food in white paper carriers from the delicatessen: tunafish sandwiches with mayonnaise, chicken tikka, gherkins, fat black olives. I was worried in case the gherkins made my breath smell, but Kai didn’t care. And always cakes. Greek honey cake, and a cake with poppyseed paste in the middle, and small bitter-chocolate cakes with almond slivers sticking out of them. Once we had fresh dates – the first time I’d tasted them. I liked the white papery shell round the stone. We ate in the van, or in the street, or in the park. And we drank polystyrene cups of coffee, and vodka. It was all right to drink vodka, everyone said, because no one could smell the alcohol on you afterwards. I used to meet Kai in school dinner-times, so it was important not to smell of drink. But I’d stretch the time out, invent a library period, say I was practising for my French oral…; I don’t know if anyone noticed. I don’t think they cared. I’d stopped caring about marks, or what they thought of me. Books made my head ache. If I looked hard at the blocks of black print little bits would change back from black cross-stitch to words, but only a line at a time and by the time I’d laboured through one I’d forgotten what came before. And I could never join it up to what went after. It was like doing one of Enid’s jigsaws where all the pieces are sky. Little, even-shaped pieces, prickling on the page.

  The van always smelled of oil. I didn’t mind, I like smells of oil and petrol, and cigarettes when they’ve just been lit. It was old and the seats were real leather, but cracked and crazed so that the stuffing was leaking out of them. And you could feel the springs when you leaned back. I used to shut my eyes and feel the sun on my face and Kai would drive and I wouldn’t even know where we were going. Only the sun behind my eyelids and a dark shadow when we went past a building, or a slow tilt at a roundabout, and then a long road, gathering speed, the van roaring and the heat spreading out all round us while the wind pulled at my hair. I could give up everything. I didn’t have to think. If I could have chosen I’d never have gone home. Once I heard Kai laugh and I knew he was looking at me. I felt so safe with him.